HiI have a 3yr old with autism who I was hoping would start special needs playschool this January. Unfortunately his starting date seems to keep moving and now I'm worried that I'm wasting all these precious early intervention months waiting, when I could have home tuition in place. Am really dissappointed that it didn't work out but now am thinking that HT might be a blessing in disguise.Anyway what kind of stuff would a HT work on, does 20 hours a week seem a lot for a 3 yr old or would he handle it? Do ur LO leave the house for any of the HT? Just trying to get my head around it. Bit of a bad day tbh! My other DS 7yrs with PDDNOS took his shoes off in school today and threw it at somebody!:-) have to laugh or I'll go madThanks C

Thanks for the replies girls. Was thinking of using the 20 hrs to work hard on language skills until this summer and then see if starting sep could get HT to go to mainstream playschool with him. I suppose the tutor will have lots of ideas also. Like the idea of going swimming and playground etc, would hate for him to be just at home for 4 hours a day. This would all be good for learning little life skills.

MY DS is just turned 3 and we have manged to use the 20 hrs by giving him 2 hrs in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. He attends mainstream creche and he gets some one to one work done on sounds, motor skills, picture matching, learning colours and sequences etc and he also works on turn taking, interacting with other children and taking part in the playschool activites like helping him with actions for music time. The tutors can also work on sign language or pecs and and set up schedules. A lot of the work is through play and he gets to play outside on the swings and slide and trampoline while doing work on sounds. Each child is so individual that the tutor will work on the needs of your child. maybe your tutor could go to a playschool with him?

do you have a tutor? the sn playschool might have staff that would do home tuition.

Oh I forgot to say! Depends on HT but I know our HT would bring my little one swimming or to playground or to these ball pool places and still teach them how to interact in these scenarios!!! But because I've really only 10 hours of HT after taking hours out for mainstream preschool I haven't opted for this! But most certainly would if we had the 20!!!

Hi C,My 3.5year old started HT last Oct, he didn't get the 20 hours because he is in the free preschool scheme 2 days this yr and 3days next yr. Because he is doing only 5 hrs in mainstream preschool they deducted these hours from HT. So I only get 15 hrs HT. I use some of these hours at home and our home tutor goes to his mainstream preschool to help him socialise with the other kiddies! So really it's fun fun fun in mainstream and then back to the books at home! But to be honest all they learn is through play. Goals are different for each child and my son is working on turn taking, attention span, eye contact, understanding, and reading/writing/abcs etc! I think a lot of it is to gear them up ready for big school, hopefully give them a head start! My son only started 3 months ago and I can see a huge difference in him!!!! Long may it last! Best of luck